DOBRY, LouisFrom Don's email of 05 Apr 2010... "I'm starting to go thru some old photos with the intent of scanning them. I found this one and it is a postcard with Louis Dobry (remember, he was killed by a German sniper at Paschendale in 1917) on the front and I'm assuming that it is his signature and on the back he is writing to his grandmother (also my grandmother). What is so interesting is he writes her totally in Czech including the date, even though he was born and raised in the USA and Canada. My cousin, Marie Monti, in California told me (the only time I met her) that the Ruzickas were raised very European. Well, My Aunt Bozena and Uncle Joe Dobry obviously raised their children in the Czech language."

Louis was a Private in the 49th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. He was killed in the Passchendaele battle of WWI.

Battle of Ypres, name applied to three battles of World War I fought in and around the town of Ypres, Belgium. Throughout the war Ypres was under constant attack as the key point of an Allied salient that blocked a German approach to the English Channel.

Third Battle
(July 31-November 10, 1917) Known also as the Passchendaele campaign, the third battle of Ypres was precipitated by a massive British offensive directed against enemy installations. In its initial phase the operation succeeded brilliantly. On June 7, 1917, British forces took the strategically important village of Messines, the heights of which commanded miles of German-occupied territory. The second phase of the offensive (July 31-November 10) proved disastrous, however. Prolonged rainfall and heavy Allied bombardment had transformed the battlefield into a swamp, and the Germans, operating from concrete pillboxes, took a heavy toll of Allied troops with mustard gas and machine-gun fire. After months of bitter fighting in deep mud, Canadian infantrymen captured the ruined village of Passchendaele. At this point the Allied command halted the offensive. Allied troops had pushed the German lines back only 8 km (5 mi); each side suffered some 250,000 casualties.

Allied operations around Ypres in the spring and early summer of 1917 were disappointing. The British attempted a second offensive on July 31; after more than three months and a total advance of 8 km (5 mi), this offensive culminated in the capture of the ridge and village of Passchendaele on November 6. It distracted German attention, however, from the collapsing French armies, thus helping to prevent a German victory in 1917. The British suffered more than 300,000 casualties, the French about 9,000, and the Germans about 260,000. Additional operations occurred in and around Ypres in the spring and fall of 1918.

8. Religion: Roman Catholic
9. Circumstances of Casualty: "Killed in Action." While taking part in an attack on the German lines, in the vicinity of Passchendaele, he was shot through the head by an enemy sniper's bullet, and instantly killed.